About 4 years ago, a year after we had started dating, I asked Brandt a question that changed everything I thought I knew about hearing loss. We were sitting in the living room; he was grading papers, and I was watching television. He didn’t have his hearing aids in, and I wondered how much, if any, of the TV program he could hear. “What do you hear right now?” I asked.
“HHHHHHRRRRRRKKKKKK!!!”
I jumped. “What was that?!” I yelled. “That’s what I hear” he said, nonchalant about it. “That LOUD?!” I asked. “Actually, louder. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember. It used to keep me awake at night when I was a kid. I thought everybody was like that; I think I was in high school before I realized it wasn’t normal.” My mouth hung open in shock. He shrugged and went back to his grading. I sat there dumbfounded, embarrassed that I hadn't asked this sooner.
I thought that I was a great expert on all things hearing loss-related, since I grew up around Aunt Louise, and had been friends with Josie for several years before I met Brandt. As far as I know, Louise didn’t have tinnitus (although she never complained about anything, so it’s possible…) I did know that Josie was not afflicted with it. She had told me that her Saturday morning ritual was to read the newspaper and watch TV without her hearing aids in, enjoying the complete and perfect silence. So I just assumed that Brandt was the same way; watching him quietly grade his papers, I thought he was enjoying noiseless tranquility. Nope, not even close.
Tinnitus literally means “ringing,” but can be perceived as a number of sounds such as buzzing, hissing, clicking, roaring, crickets chirping, beeping, whooshing, or a pure steady tone. In Odyssey of Hearing Loss, one sufferer describes his tinnitus as:
“air-raid sirens pounding against my skull,” “ocean waves,” “loud lawn mower,” “a ton of bricks falling on a pile of church bells,” and “my brain is gurgling.”
It can be sporadic or nonstop, and ranges from a faint background noise to painfully loud and distracting. An estimated 50 million Americans suffer from tinnitus, most of whom also have hearing loss. It has many possible causes, including hearing loss (tinnitus is a symptom of hearing loss, never a cause), noise exposure, earwax buildup, ototoxic medication, and a host of medical disorders. Tinnitus can be compared to a “phantom limb,” as the brain tries to make sense of the damaged inner ear and the lack of auditory input.
As I was in the middle of studying about tinnitus last summer for my Hearing Loss Support Specialist certification, I started noticing a faint tone in my left ear. At first I ignored it, but it grew louder and more continuous, until after a few weeks it was a nonstop tone. It sounded like the high-pitched squeal of an old television set; I couldn’t drown it out with background music, and it kept me awake and in tears every night for two weeks.
Panicked, I got my hearing tested at Dr. Awesome’s audiology clinic. My hearing was declared to be “within normal limits” (less than a 20 decibel impairment) except for a mild 25 dB loss at 2000 hertz in my right ear. It wasn’t the ear that was hearing the noise, so the audiologist had no explanation. I was desperate for an answer, a cure, or just some relief. Brandt tried to be helpful by saying, “You’ll get used to it. It’s annoying sometimes, but you’ll adjust.” I screamed, cried, and threw a fit, which only made the tone louder.
I went back to my class readings, and had an epiphany. Ototoxic medication. About a month before the tinnitus started, my doctor had increased my dosage of blood-sugar medication. I immediately went back to my old dosage, and two days later, the tinnitus started to subside. After another week, it was almost tolerable. I switched to an extended-release form of my medication, and after a few more weeks, the tinnitus was gone. I could finally sleep in silence again.
Brandt hasn’t been so lucky. Lately he has been waking up in the middle of the night, mistaking his tinnitus for external noises. He’s thought it was the smoke alarm, a train, and a jet engine flying over the house. Each time, he thinks it’s coming from a different source. Despite this, though, he still doesn’t act like it’s a big deal. He’s always very calm and mellow anyway, but he deserves some kind of award for dealing with this without complaint. Sometimes he takes out his hearing aids and comments on how much better his Earless World is—
“Everything is so LOUD out there! When I don’t have my ears in, my world is so quiet. All I hear is my static, and it’s so nice. When that’s all I hear, it’s easy to ignore it, and it’s very peaceful.”
When he says this, all I can think is ‘How on earth can “HHHHHHRRRRRRKKKKKK!!!” be peaceful?!’
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